Perhaps it's just the expansion of sources peddling the sort of hard-right wackiness that's been out there for decades. But when one of those sources is a cable news channel that specializes in talking points over events, it's a frightening turn of events.

And perhaps it's an appropriate time to recall the words of Pastor Martin Niemöller about the inactivity of German intellectual following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for me and by that time no one was left to speak up."

And on a personal aside, it's ironic to note this is my 2,001st post, perhaps an appropriate time to reflect on what has happened to American ideals since that sunny day in New York almost nine years ago.